


Bull-Headed

by spiderlight



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 18:39:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2662337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiderlight/pseuds/spiderlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adaar struggles to deal with the pressure of leadership, and Cassandra is more understanding than expected. </p><p>Spoilers up through the acquisition of Skyhold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bull-Headed

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler warning through some of the beginning quests at Skyhold. A small bit of the dialogue here is paraphrased from the game, and some of it at the end is based on a gifset of the Cassandra romance (which I unfortunately have not seen firsthand since I'm playing a female inquisitor).

It had been weeks since she'd truly gotten a full night's sleep, since before making it to Skyhold, before she was named Inquisitor and suddenly bore the weight of everyone's hopes and expectations, before so many died at Haven, before knowing the face of their real enemy.

Her nightmares alternated between the truth of what she'd seen—Sera's cloudy red eyes, Cassandra's lifeless body, Leliana, knife at her throat, telling her to go—and fictions her unconscious mind created to fill in the months and months she'd missed when she disappeared into the future. She dreamt of all the ways her friends might have been tortured, she dreamt of them blaming her for their deaths, she dreamt that Dorian couldn't get them back home, and of watching them all die until she was the only one left. In those ones, she woke gasping for air, the phantom feeling of her own sword piercing her chest.

Looking any of her friends in the eye after that was challenging, and Adaar found herself, more often than not, avoiding them whenever possible. The full details of what she and Dorian had seen stayed, as far as she knew, with them alone. She'd relayed what she felt was important, but didn't tell of the way Sera and Cassandra had been driven mad by red lyrium, or the tests and torture Leliana had endured. Only Leliana knew of the way they'd sacrificed themselves for her so that she and Dorian could return, and even then, Adaar had kept the details to herself.

 

* * *

 

Of course, it wasn't possible to avoid everyone forever, not when the peace between some of her companions was so tenuous.

She was reading on the floor in one of the lower rooms of the keep that they hadn't cleaned out yet when a nervous page stumbled into the room.

“Uh, your Worship? The Seeker and, uh, Messere Tethras are fighting, and no one is really sure what to do? There's a lot of shouting and crashing.”

Adaar sighed as she stood. “Where are they?”

“Near the training dummies,” he replied, twisting his fingers together.

She nodded and rubbed her tired, prickly eyes and supposed it had been too much to hope that Cassandra wouldn't find out about Hawke.

Once out in the courtyard, she simply followed the noise until she found both Cassandra and Varric above the requisitions room, surrounded by flipped and splintered furniture.

“I—I believed you!” Cassandra cried, her chest heaving. “I believed that you didn't know where she was! Because I needed her! We needed a leader, someone who knew what we were dealing with, and you kept her from me!”

“What was I supposed to do, Seeker? She's my friend, and I was your prisoner! Did you really think I would hand her to you that easily?”

“You knew what was at stake, dwarf!”

“Enough!” Adaar finally interjected, conscious of the furniture Cassandra still might throw.

The fight seemed to go out of Cassandra, and she collapsed into a wobbly chair in the corner. “Just go, Varric,” she said.

Varric shook his head and started down the stairs, only to pause after a few steps. “Hawke has been through enough,” he said coldly, before continuing down the rest of the steps.

“Cassandra,” Adaar said quietly, stepping over the ruined furniture and kneeling in front of her.

“It's my fault,” Cassandra said. “I should have explained, I should have told him why we needed Hawke. If I had--”

“But you didn't, and you couldn't have known what would happen. It isn't your fault.”

Cassandra held her head in her hands. “Isn't it?”

Adaar gently wrapped her large hands around Cassandra's wrists and pulled her hands away from her face. Cassandra's eyes were watery, but her cheeks still defiantly dry.

“It's not, and no one but _you_ blames you for what happened. Not even Varric.”

Cassandra sighed shakily, and Adaar carefully moved her hands from Cassandra's wrists to her back, enveloping her in a loose hug and hoping it was the right thing to do. After a moment's hesitation, Cassandra let her forehead rest on Adaar's shoulder. They sat together for a few moments until Cassandra abruptly sat back up, her face steeled.

“Thank you, Inquisitor. I must get back to work.” And she left.

 

* * *

 

In Haven, Adaar had taken to wandering the town at night when she couldn't sleep; there had always been enough people up—the blacksmiths, the recruits, others who had already seen so much death that sleep wasn't the relief it should have been. The cold air kept her eyes open, and gave her something to focus on that wasn't her dreams.

Every time her eyes closed, she saw their faces, their deaths.

Her companions, when she'd given them the edited version of what she'd seen in the future, were appropriately horrified by what might have come to pass, but were still separate from it. To them, it had never happened. She'd spoken briefly to Dorian, and could tell from the shadows under his eyes that he felt similarly. She wasn't the only one to see friends die there.

Sleep was not easier in Skyhold. Many of the rooms were still not ready for habitation, and in the meantime, cots had been set up inside, and tents had been erected in the courtyard. In light of her new position, they'd given her a small room to herself, and she'd probably slept a total of six hours in it over the course of a week.

Much like Haven, there were still plenty of people up late at night, though now they acknowledged her, watched her. She took to walking the ramparts, climbing up to parts still littered with rubble, where they hadn't yet been able to station guards.

Tonight she had chosen one such spot, high up, and surrounded by rubble. It was relatively secluded, and she figured she'd be able to sit in relative peace.

There was a quiet scuffling a few hours later. “If I am not to blame for Haven,” came Cassandra's voice, “then you are not to blame for a future that never happened.”

Adaar turned and watched as Cassandra, clad in far less armor than Adaar was used to seeing her in, climbed over the pile of rubble and settled on the cold stone next to her.

When Adaar didn't respond immediately, Cassandra said, “Leliana mentioned something to me. Not details, but enough to figure out why you haven't been sleeping, and why you've been avoiding us.”

Adaar kept silent, unsure of what to say.

Cassandra continued, “It isn't your fault, that we died in that future. I'm sure Leliana told you that any of us would gladly give our lives for yours, and she is right. You are _important_ , Inquisitor, and we cannot do this without you.”

Adaar cleared her throat. “You all speak as though it never happened,” she said, her voice raspy. “The future I went to, it did happen. For a year, you were all kept prisoner, tortured, driven mad by red lyrium. Leliana. . . they did things to her, they destroyed her. You hardly noticed me at first, when I found you. You were talking to yourself. And Sera—Sera cried. She thought I was a demon. I had to convince her that I was real, that I had come back.” She paused, taking a few deep breaths. “And then the three of you died so that Dorian and I could come back and fix everything. It _happened_. Somewhere, it _happened_. You spent a year suffering, and you died, right in front of me. It happened.”

Cassandra's cold hands gripped either side of Adaar's face. “And it was _not_ your fault. It is our duty to lay down our lives for you.”

“But I--”

“Even if you don't like it,” Cassandra said, her eyes boring into Adaar's. “I do not want to die, but I will do so if it means you _live_.”

Adaar mimicked Cassandra's position from that morning, resting her horned head on Cassandra's considerably smaller shoulder, and whispered, “I don't know if I can do this.”

“You can,” Cassandra said, with conviction.

Adaar wrapped her fingers in Cassandra's soft shirt and believed her.

 

* * *

 

Her nightmares weren't as bad after that. They were still there, many nights, and the shadows under her eyes persisted, but she managed enough sleep to not be a danger to her allies in a fight. On bad days, she began spending time with Solas, who seemed to know exactly when she simply needed somewhere to sit in silence, and when she needed someone to talk to.

When they found that she could wake in the fade despite all lack of magical ability, she and Solas spent many nights in dreams together; sometimes in his, sometimes in hers. Some mornings she'd wake, remembering only the vague beginning of a nightmare before it faded into something else.

She hadn't spoken to Cassandra beyond discussions of Inquisition business since that night, and she feared that somehow she'd crossed a line and made things awkward. Perhaps Cassandra hadn't wanted to know the extent of what she had endured in that future, or perhaps she'd been uncomfortable with Adaar's show of weakness, or even her own.

The tension was thick enough that others began to notice. Bull tried to rib her when she brought him along instead of Cassandra to the Hinterlands to seal up the remaining rifts, though he shut quickly up when Adaar hit him in his exposed gut and knocked the wind out of him. The others learned quickly not to bring it up, but she could see the questions in their eyes, wondering whether there'd been a fight and what that would mean for the Inquisition.

To quiet them, and in the hope of easing the tension between herself and Cassandra, she took Cassandra, along with Solas and Varric (two birds with one stone, she hoped), to the Storm Coast to establish base camps and root out the remaining rogue templars.

The four of them had worked enough together for their styles and tactics to be fluid and coordinated despite whatever personal issues were between them, and it would have been a simple enough task had an additional group of bandits not stumbled upon them in the middle of a fight. Solas and Varric, who could usually keep far enough from the fighting to be safe enough, were both overwhelmed and struggling to keep both templar and bandit off themselves. Adaar and Cassandra were making relatively quick work of them, fighting back-to-back, until a templar's shield hit Adaar from her left and knocked her to the ground, leaving Cassandra's back exposed. From the ground, she could see the templar take the opening to move in and aim a killing blow at Cassandra.

Adaar heaved herself off the ground and moved to put herself in between the templar's sword and Cassandra's back. Without time or room to raise her broadsword to deflect the blow, the best she could do was take the blow and hope her armor held up.

The sword glanced off her breastplate but slid home in the gap between it and her right pauldron. The angle meant it couldn't go very deep, and she took advantage of the templar's surprise to bring her broadsword up and shove him back before ending his life.

The wound didn't feel life-threatening, and the remaining templars and bandits did not last long.

“Let's not do that again,” Varric said, afterward, leaning on a boulder and wiping sweat and rain from his face.

Solas eyed her right shoulder critically. “Let me look at that,” he said, reaching for her pauldron.

“It's only a scratch,” Adaar replied, stepping back. In truth, now that the fight was over, it hurt quite a lot, but it didn't feel deep and she wasn't faint, so she figured it would be fine until they returned to camp and she could clean and bandage it herself.

Cassandra looked up sharply before coming around to pull at Adaar's pauldron. “You took that blow for me,” she said, anger bubbling in her tone. “What have I told you? Your life is more important! It is not your job to protect me!”

“He would have _killed_ you,” Adaar snarled, just as incensed.

“And if he'd killed _you_?” Cassandra retorted.

“The angle was wrong! I knew he couldn't.”

Cassandra made a disgusted noise and turned away. Solas wordlessly pulled off her pauldron and laid a hand just over the wound to heal it.

“It's not fully healed,” he said, looking up at her, “but it will do until a proper healer can look at it later.”

“Thank you, Solas,” said Adaar distractedly. Cassandra had already stomped off in the direction of their camp, though knowing her, she wouldn't get so far ahead that she couldn't come back if they needed her.

Dinner was tense, and both Solas and Varric turned in early, leaving Cassandra and Adaar to sit around the fire in angry, awkward silence.

“Was it because you still feel guilty?” Cassandra asked suddenly.

Adaar sighed through her nose and said, annoyed, “It was because _I didn't want you to die_ , Cassandra.” After a moment, her expression softened. “I can't do this without you.”

“Of course you could,” Cassandra replied, poking at the fire. “You have Cullen, Leliana, and Josephine to advise you.”

“Maybe, but I don't _want_ to.”

Cassandra turned her head to look her in the eye. “You can't die for me, Inquisitor. That's the bottom line.”

“Fine,” said Adaar, sitting up straight. “Then you can't die for me.”

Cassandra's lips twitched. “I can't promise I won't. But I can try.” And really, that was the most Adaar could ask for.

 

* * *

 

Things became less tense in the following weeks, the threat of Corypheus notwithstanding. On days between missions, Cassandra worked Adaar so hard in training that she could do little but pass out and sleep through the night, afterward. Her nightmares, more often than not, tended to fade away as soon as they began, and as wordless thanks, Adaar began bringing Solas presents—little things she'd found that she thought he might like.

On nights when she truly couldn't sleep, she'd find Blackwall out in the barn, working on his carvings. After a few nights of her silent observing, he offered to teach her.

“I am no artist, by any means,” he warned, “but I can teach you something simple.”

Her cuts were clumsy at first, and she had to slink off to ask Solas to heal her cut fingers in secrecy more than once, but with a little practice she proved relatively adept at it. Her first completed figure was a little wolf—it was somewhat crude, but the silhouette was recognizable and its head was slightly cocked, curious. She sat it on a shelf in her room, and soon following it were a turtle, a fawn, and a nug.

Once Adaar began spending more than just nights in the barn, Cassandra would look in on them occasionally, the afternoon sun a halo behind her, and Adaar had to stop herself from holding her breath whenever it happened. Which, incidentally, was more and more frequently; her eyes wandering to Cassandra's mouth when she spoke, following a bead of sweat on her brow as they sparred, her hands itching to run her fingers through her short hair.

“You should carve her something,” Blackwall said one afternoon.

Adaar looked up from the mabari she was carving. “What?”

Blackwall's moustache twitched. “Cassandra. You go a bit purple in the face whenever she comes around.”

“I do not—”

“I think she'd like it, if you carved her something pretty. Seems the sort to secretly like that.”

Adaar considered denying his implication, but Blackwall had already turned back to his own work, and well, he would keep her secret.

His idea certainly had merit. It was better than flowers, a custom Adaar was familiar with from growing up among humans, but still didn't quite understand the appeal of. And besides, it didn't make much sense to pick flowers from around the keep and give them to Cassandra, when they'd only die and Cassandra could just as easily see them in the ground, alive.

She considered what she might carve as she continued work on the mabari.

 

* * *

 

“You must be more delicate if you don't want to break this one, too,” Blackwall said, exasperated.

Adaar nearly threw the beginnings of her fourth carving at him. “My hands are twice the size of yours! This is as delicate as I get!”

He scoffed. “I don't believe that. Try again. Gently.”

In her hands was the beginning of a small wooden bouquet—lilacs, which had been mysteriously suggested by Solas. The flowers were so tiny and delicate, and Adaar's hands so large and used to swinging a sword, that so far she'd managed to break her first several tries into pieces. Assuming she finished, she planned to hang it on a chain and give it to Cassandra as a necklace.

“This is a terrible idea,” she said, sighing. “She probably won't even like it. Cassandra doesn't wear jewelry.”

Blackwall rolled his eyes. “Keep working.” He moved away to continue his own carving, a box of some sort.

In the end, she wasn't sure how much her little wooden bouquet really resembled lilacs, but it was at least recognizable as _flowers_. She drilled a small hole and covered it in resin to protect it, then strung it on the thin chain she'd bought from one of the vendors on the keep's grounds.

“Done,” she said at last, holding it up to the light.

“It's beautiful,” Blackwall told her. Adaar looked sideways at him, sure she was being mocked, but his expression was sincere.

All that was left was giving the thing to Cassandra.

 

* * *

 

Of course, what she actually did was leave it on Cassandra's bed while Cassandra was off working, then retreat back to the barn to distract herself.

Cassandra found her several hours later, pendant in hand, the afternoon sun glinting off her hair the way it always did. Adaar held her breath, the way she always did.

“Did you make this?” Cassandra asked.

“Yes,” Adaar replied. She glanced sideways at Blackwall, who was quietly slipping out through the stables.

“Why?” asked Cassandra, her face blank.

“Because I—because I have feelings. For you. And I, er, I want to court you?”

“You. . . do.”

“Is that. . . okay?”

“No,” said Cassandra, before turning and walking away.

Adaar exhaled shakily, rubbing her palms over her face.

“Wait,” said Cassandra, turning back to the barn. Adaar looked up at her over her hands. “I. . . take that back.” Cassandra took a few hesitant steps toward Adaar, who watched her warily. “I take it back.” She closed the last few feet between them and held her free hand to Adaar's face.

Adaar leaned into the touch, and Cassandra raised herself to her toes to press her lips to Adaar's. Her lips were rough and chapped, and Adaar could have _sung_.

When they parted, Cassandra took a step back before wordlessly slipping the pendant over her head and tucking it safely under her shirt.


End file.
